| CHILDREN — Care proceedings — Special guardianship order — Child placed with grandparents from birth — Application for change of child’s surname — Whether appropriate — Children Act 1989, s 14A (as inserted by Adoption and Children Act 2002, s 115)
In re L (A Child) [2007] EWCA Civ 196
CA: Ward, Wilson and Toulson LJJ: 13 March 2007
{A special guardianship order (“SGO”) was intended to provide foundations for a life-long relationship between a child and carer and to secure stability for the child to be cemented into a new family. However the power to order the child to be known by a new surname should not be exercised by the court if it would interfere with the child’s emotional identity needs.
The Court of Appeal in a reserved judgment so held dismissing an appeal by grandparents of a three-year old child, E, from Black J who on 7 September 7 2006, having made a SGO in favour of the grandparents and ordered E’s occasional restricted contact with her mother, had refused permission for E’s surname to be changed to that of the grandparents.
Section 14B(2) of the Children Act 1989, as inserted, provides: “On making a special guardianship order, the court may also— (a) give leave for the child to be known by a new surname …” The Special Guardianship Regulations 2005 (SI 2005/1109) set out detailed provisions relating to the making of such orders.
WARD LJ said that the besetting problem was E’s parents’ drug addiction, as a result of which E in 2004 at the age of three months had been placed with her maternal grandparents. They, aged 56 and 58, were an intelligent, well-educated, devoted professional couple who lived comfortably in a large house. Their care of E was outstanding. E’s mother was an intelligent woman, her life blighted by drugs. She had married E’s father, an African Caribbean drug addict. Their relationship was tempestuous, the police being involved in their domestic violence. The grandparents vested huge emotional importance in the name-change issue. They contended that there was a fatal inconsistency between the granting of an SGO and the restrictive effect of the judge’s order on the free exercise of the overriding parental responsibility conferred on them. It would, they said, be real support to their maintenance of E and a helpful definition to shore up their stability in the face of the swell of addict chaos. The grandparents were correct in stating that the SGO conferred parental responsibility on them, promoting and securing stability for E to be cemented into the new family relationship. But the grandparents were not free from judicial oversight. The crucial element was the vexing problem of E’s identity. The grandparents concerns overlooked the value of the lesson taught everyone at mother’s knee: honesty was the best policy. This family had honestly to face up to its fractured constitution. E had to learn that she was being brought up by her grandparents. In the scale of things in a child’s life her surname was of little significance: far more important was the knowledge that she was much loved by her grandparents who brought her up.
WILSON LJ gave a concurring judgment.
TOULSON LJ agreed.
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